A La Tangled
by abbyli
Summary: New neighbors Clarke and Bellamy have an unusual first meeting a la Tangled. It involves a frying pan and of course a frog. Uh, chameleon. [ modern au ] .


**a/n: Okay I couldn't help myself. I've seen comparison gifsets on tumblr of Eugene/Rapunzel and Bellarke and I just had to do this. By the way, follow me on tumblr if you want. My handle is janefosters.**

 **.**

 **.**

Ever since she had moved into this apartment complex, she had been hearing the strangest sounds at nighttime.

First it was the moaning. She really hopes it's just her cute upstairs neighbor getting it on with someone but when she asks him the next day ( _no_ she doesn't ask him if he was banging someone, she just asks him if he heard the noises), he looks at her like she had grown horns. So that's out.

Then the scratching. In the walls, under the floor. Like a demon was hiding in there and ready to come out and kill her.

She whines to Lexa, begging her ex girlfriend to come over and protect her for the night, she gets dry laughter in response. With a huff she hangs up the phone and arms herself that night with a frying pan.

"What do you think, Spartacus?" she asks her chameleon after finishing her conversation with Lexa. "Is Mommy crazy?"

Her favorite reptile flicks his tongue at her before scurrying around the side of his case and disappearing from view.

The screeching begins the following night. She had just let Spartacus out of his case so he could move around the floor in their game of hide and seek and – _yes_ she's aware she's living the life of Rapunzel and _no_ she doesn't care how sad that makes her look – when she hears it.

Spartacus does too. She just had an eye on him pretending to blend in with the couch when the noises hit her ears and she jumps and her reptile disappears.

"Okay, that's it." She's getting to the bottom of this right now.

This is probably going to be the dumbest thing she has ever done, she thinks as she reaches for a frying pan off of her kitchen counter. If there is an axe murderer outside, she knows a frying pan isn't going to do much to fend him off.

Armed with her frying pan and a flashlight – maybe she can shove the skinny flashlight into the axe murderer's eye – Clarke wedges her front door open. She points the flashlight down the darkened hallway and sees nothing. Her heart hammers in her chest, blood pounding in her ears as she begins to crawl down the hallway. Her bunny slippers make a slight scuffing sound on the carpet, but of course to her ears it's loud enough to wake up the whole building.

She doesn't see the shadow coming down the stairs until she turns around quickly, shining her flashlight right in her axe murderer's face. He yells, slapping his hand over his eyes and stepping back before she hears a loud squawk and a snapping sound. She shrieks, letting her frying pan fly, coming down with a thud right on her axe murderer's head. He falls like a sack of potatoes at her feet.

Clarke leans over, shining the flashlight in the intruder's unconscious face. Uh-oh, not an axe murderer. Her cute upstairs neighbor.

" _What's going on down there?"_

She peeks at her other neighbor, the gruff but thoughtful Theolonius before dropping her head. "Mr. Jaha, can you call an ambulance?"

-;

Bellamy Blake was having an easy night until he heard that damn croaking sound in the halls again. He should have brought a flashlight when he went to investigate but in his brain, he thought sneaking up on the terrified (but very pretty) neighbor of his was better.

So when he wakes up on a emergency room gurney and sees his neighbor seated across from him on a stool, a guilty look etched across her face, he can't help but laugh. And then wince. "Owwww."

She comes to his side. "Careful with that. You have a mild concussion."

"Yeah, that you gave me."

She sucks her bottom lip in between her teeth. He wishes he didn't find that so cute. "You remember that?"

Bellamy snickers. "Yeah. You nearly blinded me, your frog bit my toe and then I was seeing stars. You know, the cartoons got it right. You really do have tiny animated birds flapping around your head before you get knocked out."

The girl starts to chuckle. "I've never been knocked out before so I don't know. And it's not a frog, it's a _chameleon_ – oh shit! We left him in the hallway!"

"Who?"

"Spartacus! I was playing hide and seek with him until I started hearing that noise again and I forgot to put him back in his case!"

Bellamy raises a brow. Of course she had to be cute and quite strange. "You play hide and seek with your lizard?"

" _Chameleon_ and yes! I have to go back there and look for him. What if someone puts him outside?"

"Hey, easy there." Bellamy snatches one of her wrists in his hand before she can scamper off. "We'll find your gecko when we get back to the apartment."

She huffs angrily. "For the last time, he's not a gecko or a lizard or a frog. He's a chameleon!"

"That bit off most of my toe!"

"Your toe is fine, his teeth are too small to do anything to you."

"Well he could have."

She rolls her eyes but doesn't argue any further. "You don't have to help me. I was the one that knocked you out."

He scoffs. "I'm a good Samaritan."

That's when the nurse comes to take him away for another brain scan. Yeah he definitely needs it for staying in the house of horrors. But as he watches his neighbor before he's rolled away, maybe it's not so bad.

-;

" _Spartacus!_ Come out you annoying little lizard. I mean, _chameleon!"_

Clarke comes around the corner, her own flashlight in her hands. "I heard that."

"Yeah well...he is annoying," Bellamy scowls. He sticks the end of his flashlight in his mouth, continuing to crawl along the carpeted floor. He pokes at one of the furnace vents and lets out a yell as the vent begins to move on its own. "Hey it's your lizard!"

"Spartacus!" Clarke comes padding down the hallway, making a dash after the moving blur of reptile. "Come to Mommy!"

Bellamy watches, amazed, as the frog – _chameleon_ – turns in it's haste for the door and raises it's eyes to look at Clarke before allowing her to pick him up. Bellamy climbs to his feet and approaches warily. "I cannot believe you just did that."

"Haven't you ever had a pet before?" she asks.

"Sure. A cat. A real pet!"

Clarke scoffs. "Reptiles can be great pets. Come on, let's get him back into his case."

Bellamy follows her into her apartment, staying by the door as she walks over to the large glass case and lets the reptile walk off of her fingers and into his little habitat. "How did you do that?" he asks her.

"Do what?"

"Your...Rapunzel thing?" he offers, wincing at the squeak in his voice. "The frying pan, the iguana –"

Clarke stares at him for a good ten seconds before bursting into laughter. "It really is a la tangled, isn't it? And you came into my tower and I knocked you out. Oh my god," she starts to wheeze, holding her stomach as she doubles over. "And you're my Eugene Fitzherbert!" She's almost cackling now.

"It's not that funny," Bellamy scowls.

"Oh it's totally funny," Clarke chuckles, wiping tears of mirth out of her eyes. She catches Bellamy's pout. "Okay, okay I'll stop."

"Thank you."

Clarke pads into her kitchen. "Want some coffee?"

"Sure."

He sits down on the couch and picks up the remote, flicking through the channels on the television until Clarke returns. "Black?" she asks, raising up the mug in her hands.

"Good guess."

Clarke perches beside him on the sofa with her own mug cradled in her hands. "You know, we never did figure out what those noises were that we were hearing."

Bellamy raises a brow. "Do you want to investigate tonight?"

Clarke looks at the clock on the wall. "It's five now. You want to meet me back here around nine? That's when I usually start hearing those noises."

"It's a date – uh _deal_."

-;

This time, it's howling.

Clarke's waiting alone in her apartment, armed with her frying pan and wondering if Bellamy is going to show up. When the soft knock comes on her door, she lets out a scream that could be heard in Texas. "Jesus, Clarke it's me!"

She rips open the door and grabs Bellamy by the wrist. "Get in here!" She slams the door shut behind him, flipping the deadbolt. "Please tell me you just stubbed your toe or something and you were the one howling like someone was stabbing you."

Bellamy rolls his eyes. "I heard it too. And it wasn't that loud. It sounds like it's coming from inside the walls."

"Someone was murdered and their body was stuffed into the walls and now their ghost can't get out!"

"Clarke, take it easy!" Bellamy's hands close around her shoulders. "We'll go and check this out. Got your frying pan?" He weaves his head to the side when she produces it by his left ear. "Okay, let's go."

Clarke follows him out the door, her hand gripping the back collar of his teeshirt like a vice. "Uh, Clarke? You're choking me."

"Oh sorry."

She loosens her hold only slightly.

 _Hooohoooo_

"You know what that sounds like?" she says. "I had an old cat that used to make those noises when she was popping out kittens."

"Really? Kittens?"

" _Well._ "

They move around the corner, Clarke still hidden behind Bellamy's form.

 _Hooohooo._

"Gimmee that frying pan." He snatches it from her fingers, holding it out in front of him like a machete.

She snickers. "And you tease me for it."

"Shut up."

 _Scritch-scratch_

"Bellamy, now there's scratching again!"

" _I know!"_

The noise is getting louder. And then suddenly, they are right on top of it.

"Hold the pan." He shoves the pan and the flashlight into her hands, kneeling down to stick his fingernails on the side of the floorboard. With a grunt he pulls it up and Clarke screams. "Stop screaming! It's not an axe murderer!"

Clarke tiptoes forward. "Are you sure?" Bellamy holds out his hand for the flashlight.

"Look." Clarke peers into the grey and then suddenly she hears a soft _mew._ "You were right, princess."

"I was?"

Bellamy sticks his hand into the hole and pulls up something very small, very soft, and very fluffy, placing it into her free hand. "Don't drop it. They can only be about three weeks old."

A kitten. A small, fuzzy jet black kitten.

"They're all black. Where's – oh there she is. Hey there, momma."

Clarke sets the frying pan down on the floor and cradles the tiny kitten in her hands. She watches as Bellamy gently pulls the family up out of the floor and sets each kitten one by one into the frying pan. At Clarke's dismayed expression, he laughs. "Easier to carry." The last one he pulls up is the mother and to her surprise, the mother is snow white.

"I'll take her," Clarke says, gently placing the last kitten into the pan. "You take the babies."

"'Kay." Clarke watches as Bellamy leans down and carefully lifts the pan of kittens up, easing them back into the pan as they try to escape. "Say, Spartacus doesn't like to eat little furry things, right? He's not a mouse eater or -?"

"Don't you know anything about reptiles?"

"Snakes, not geckos."

"Chameleon for the last time, Blake!"

Bellamy laughs, tweaking a lock of her hair.

-;

She keeps the mother cat and one baby. Bellamy takes another kitten and soon the complex in every apartment. Her landlord isn't too pleased but relents when she places the last kitten in his arms. The look on the older man's face, ugh something to put in the books.

"All right, you can all keep them but if I step on one kitten turd then it's out on the streets for them all!" The kitten in his arms mews pitifully. "Oh yes it's dinner time isn't it Patches?"

Bellamy stares at her. _"Patches?_ " he mouths.

Clarke shushes him, hiding a grin. "Thanks," she says to her landlord's retreating back.

The rest of the occupants applaud softly before moving back into their apartments. Bellamy comes over to her, his cat resting on his shoulder like a parrot. "Princess and I thank you."

"Princess? They're too young for you to know their gender."

"Easy to fix. Then it will become Prince." He looks down at the cats in her arms. "What did you name these two?"

"Well I wanted to keep going with the Roman god theme so the mama I named Hera and the baby I named Aros."

Bellamy raises a brow. "Not bad."

Princess meows, sticking a paw out towards Clarke's shoulder. Clarke yelps softly when Princess makes a swipe for a lock of blond hair and Bellamy pulls her away. "Bad girl...or boy."

"Well I better get these two settled. I will have to go the store in the morning and get everything they need," Clarke says, aiming herself for her apartment. "Uh..."

"Um," Bellamy looks just as awkard as she feels and she shouldn't find that so cute. "Yeah, um same." He's halfway up the stairs to his apartment when Clarke's voice stops him.

"You wanna have dinner?"

"Now?"

Clarke rolls her eyes. "No, next Sunday. Yes, now. I've got a tantalizing frozen pizza just waiting to be baked."

"You're keeping Spartacus in the case, right?" Clarke nods, a smile creasing her lips. "Frozen pizza sounds great."

She waits at the door, holding it half open. Bellamy reaches her, Princess still clutched in his arms. "Uh..."

" _Yeah_."

 **-;**

 **So adorabley awkward! Please leave a review if you can!**


End file.
